A Thing of the Present
by LoveTheBoyWithTheBread
Summary: Mockingjay Spoilers!  Years after Mockingjay.  Alternate epilogue written for the Starvation Forum's monthly oneshot competition.


**A/N-Written for the Starvation forum's monthly oneshot competition for the month of September, 2010. This month's prompt: Alternative Epilogue.**

**Warning, Mockingjay spoilers.**

**Disclaimer-Disclaimed.**

**Enjoy :)!**

* * *

I hold in my hands an account of the war that started the Hunger Games, the war that ended it, and all the events in between. There is a complete profiling on the girl known as the Mockingjay. She started the rebellion, and brought it to a close. She was the death of two presidents, and she went insane by the end of the Capitol Age. But she is long dead now, and so are her children. Her husband is gone too, and I feel-upon further examination of the records-that he was more pivotal to the war's start and success than his wife was.

* * *

Four major persons from the history of District 2 sit before me. This book is required reading for my class. It tells of the glory, honor, and valor demonstrated by a man named Gale. It also speaks of a girl I find altogether unimportant, but who is in here nonetheless,-one Johanna Mason-Hawthorne-and the reasons she didn't participate in the rebellion. The other two are in our Great Person's Profiling for another reason: they were losers of the 74th Games, the very Games that started the rebellion. Cato and Clove. My teacher said that they were placed in the GPP because Gale Hawthorne insisted upon it, as they both died so that Katniss Everdeen might live. I don't understand it, but I still study it.

* * *

Annie O'Dair. I read about her every day. About her and her child and her husband who was killed during the Great Rebellion that ended the days of the Hunger Games. She was insane; completely and utterly. But she could hold herself together, and she knew when something was wrong. I don't know why we have to study her. She originated in District 4, and died with her child in District 13, but I am living in District 3, so why is she so important? What made her and her husband, Finnick, important enough to be placed in history books and taught to children hundreds of years later? So they died in an effort to end cruelty, or something along those lines. They were only a few of a faceless million.

* * *

I can't walk into the school building without hearing the name "Rue". Friend and ally of Katniss Everdeen, the reason the rebellion was a success, it traces down to the very roots of our lives. Blah, blah, blah. What's so important about a 12-year-old girl that died before my grandparents were even alive? I'll never forget her name, because I haven't the option to. But if I didn't have to go to school, believe me, you'd never hear me speak of her name again. Just because I live in District 11 doesn't mean I need to know about Rue. Rue, Rue, Rue. At least all those kids who died in the Hunger Games didn't have to hear the same, unimportant name every three minutes.

* * *

My name is Hashi Mellark, and I will never forget it. When I grow up and get married, Mellark will stay attached to my new last name and my children will inherit it with a hyphen to follow. Why? Why must I forever live in the shadow of Katniss Everdeen-Mellark and Peeta Mellark and their courageous acts, and stupid acts, and even the acts that they never did? I walk down the streets of District 12 and receive congratulations, just because I'm a descendant of the great Mockingjay. Or even worse, I'll go by the people who expect me to go crazy. Because Katniss killed President Coin, "Destined to become the greatest president Panem had ever known! If she hadn't been shot through with an arrow by Katniss Everdeen." So she was insane, that doesn't mean I have to be. And Peeta went insane too, way back during the Great Rebellion. He was brainwashed by the tyrannous President Snow and nearly killed Katniss, even though he was in love with her. Well I'm not them; I'm sane.

There are textbooks and Great Person's Profilings and banners and signs and billboards everywhere advertising hundreds of people that mean nothing to me. Ancestors of mine that have nothing in common with me. Okay, so maybe I like to hunt. But I do it with a rifle, in a designated hunting area where I won't be killed if I'm discovered. And I hunt for fun, not because I have to keep my family alive. My family is doing quite well, owning the Bakery and everything.

But that isn't the only bad part about being a Mellark. I'm expected to be smart, cunning, strong, brave, thoughtful, a good speaker, a head-turner, a heartbreaker. I'm not any of those things. I'm just Hashi, and I have a feeling that that's all I'll ever be.

_

* * *

_

**.:Three Years Later:.**

* * *

_"Widely renowned for her participation in the Great Rebellion of the year 76, Capitol Age, Katniss Everdeen-Mellark has left behind a sole descendant. This many-greats-granddaughter is expected to do wonderful things for our crumbly government in the next decade. Hashi Mellark is running for President of Panem, at age 19, based on exceeding credentials in public-speaking, government classes, and war strategies. It is being conjectured that she will win in a landslide against her opponent, District 4 resident Flecshine Hawthorne, 22."_

Daria Heavensby stares at the newspaper article in wonder. No one has made the connection between the last names of the two contestants. No one has guessed that they are descendants of not only best friends, but of enemies. No one will ever know, because no one keeps track of the facts anymore. Everything is guesswork. The only reason that Daria knows is because every name, face, and tiny detail of the last one-hundred-forty-three years has been past down from generation to generation, starting with her earliest recorded ancestor, Plutarch Heavensby.

That's why Daria knows the significance of her name, a derivative of Darius, a once-peacekeeper who was turned Avox, then tortured and killed during the Great Rebellion. And she knows that Hashi Mellark comes from the same family tree as both Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen. She knows that Katniss once loved Flecshine's ancestor, Gale, and she knows that Gale hated Peeta. She also knows that Hashi will win the presidential race, because she will be known as a descendant of Katniss. Daria is able to predict that this will cause an eruption from Flecshine, who is just as head-strong as Gale and Johanna were.

What she can't, and doesn't, predict is the most pivotal. Daria will never know the affects that these next few years will have on the districts, and the central government. She doesn't know of the unrest already forming from others her age, and the age of Hashi and Flecshine. She isn't aware of the fact that some people are as strongly opposed to equality as they once were to the Hunger Games.

What Daria will never know, is that the electing of a descendant of Katniss Everdeen will restart the very thing that so many people died to end. Because Daria will choose to die before she allows the Hunger Games to come out of the past, and become a thing of the present.


End file.
